


Submerged

by randomalia (spilinski)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: M/M, Padawan Obi-Wan, Pre-Slash, mission snapshot, obi-wan/feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 22:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15059036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilinski/pseuds/randomalia
Summary: He's not here,Obi-Wan told himself desperately.He never will be.





	Submerged

**Author's Note:**

> A little ficlet for the QuiObi Week challenge. Pre-slash (I know :>)

The sun burned the ground as Obi-Wan walked barefoot across the plaza of All Souls. At one end stood the royal family with their retinue and favoured servants. At the other end waited Qui-Gon, a lone figure whose cloak flapped restlessly in the wind.

'I come before you honest and unchained,' Obi-Wan murmured to himself, still too far away from the royal family for them to hear him practice his speech. He had very little to say, but to get it wrong would be somewhat disastrous. 'The Sun Mother burns my soul clean. I come before you honest and unchained...'

It was a very complicated way of saying hello, if you asked Obi-Wan. As he was merely a padawan no one did ever ask him, but he was always ready to favour Qui-Gon with his opinion nonetheless. Especially as it was he who had to traverse the massive plaza under the punishing sun and pledge himself to be the royal family's – something. The word did not exactly translate, Qui-Gon said. But it was something like servant.

'Tell me again why the apprentice is doing the pledging and not the master?' Obi-Wan had asked as he stood down one end of the plaza and handed his boots to Qui-Gon. 

'They see youth as unspoiled. More trustworthy and honest than an adult.'

'I would hardly call myself unspoiled,' Obi-Wan had said with a cheeky smile, and Qui-Gon had given him one of those mysterious blank looks that Obi-Wan had never managed to decipher. 

'Don't forget the words,' was all Qui-Gon had said. 'Or we'll be spending a week in jail.'

'Under the wide sky I am known. The Sun Mother burns my soul clean,' Obi-Wan began, and Qui-Gon nudged him forward. 

'To them, Padawan.'

He walked slowly and steadily, his bare feet touching down silently on the hot surface. Behind him he could sense with precision where Qui-Gon stood, seemingly content to wait in the midday sun.

Qui-Gon had been excited to come to Calor. He hadn't said so – he never said so – but he spoke of the planet with admiration in his careful voice: a beautiful place, he said, marred by an ancient disagreement among its ruling families. His appreciation made Obi-Wan all the more interested to come and see what Qui-Gon thought _beautiful_.

It certainly looked interesting, though so far they had seen only the spaceport and the great walls of the palace.

Ahead stood the formal gathering of the royal family, all of them standing still and solemn, decorated in the grey and gold of their house. Obi-Wan paced toward them steadily, and when he was close he stopped, and knelt. 

*

After, Obi-Wan had only a moment to smile back at Qui-Gon triumphantly – a smile Qui-Gon could not possibly have seen from such a distance – before the servants herded him through a side door and into the palace grounds. 

He was taken inside the palace through another side door and down a long, lingering flight of stairs. They must have led well below ground as the heat of the sun dissipated the deeper they went, and around him the walls were made of thick stone that was cool to the touch. They were decorated with old tapestries whose threads had worn thin, and muted colours of red, gold and grey flashed by in Obi-Wan's peripheral vision.

Eventually he was brought into a wide room where the air became steamy and thick. Large pools of water were set into the floor and a smooth stone bench ran around the walls. A bathing room, he guessed, and glanced at the small huddle of servants who had followed him. It was a good thing he was comfortable being naked in front of strangers.

'You shall be clean to do your work,' said one of the servants, a woman with dark eyes and a guarded expression. 'You shall dress in house colours and present yourself as an honoured aide of the family.' She indicated a set of clothes folded neatly on the bench nearby.

'Very well,' said Obi-Wan. 'May I keep my belt and – my other items?' 

He had handed his boots to Qui-Gon but had kept his lightsaber. 

'You will not need a belt,' the woman said. 'You may store your personal items in your room.'

'Thank you,' Obi-Wan said, and when nothing more seemed to be forthcoming he turned away to the bench and began to disrobe.

*

The baths were surprisingly good. The water was warm, though how they heated it he could not tell, and the space was large enough to swim from one end to the other. To Obi-Wan it felt like an uncommon luxury, albeit a slightly strange one, given that he had an audience. He splashed about for a bit, rubbing himself down a little so it looked like he was cleaning away dirt or sweat or dishonesty – whatever it was he was supposed to be cleaning away – and then he found a submerged stone ledge at one end on which he could sit and soak. 

He wondered how Qui-Gon was faring. He could sense that his master was in the castle as well, though higher, much higher above him. Most likely he was stuck in diplomatic discussion with the family while Obi-Wan sprawled lazily in scented water many levels below.

He wondered what Qui-Gon would have done if they had been sent to the baths together. Most likely he would have tried to talk with the servants, because that was exactly the sort of thing he always did, and exactly the sort of thing that drew them into all sorts of troublesome detours on their missions. 

But if there had been no servants... Obi-Wan stared at the long sheet of water stretching away from him. The air was heavy and warm and the room was quiet and still. No doubt Qui-Gon's low voice would echo softly in the chamber. Obi-Wan could almost hear it, in fact, the way he would say Obi-Wan's name as he moved through the smooth water. Obi-Wan could picture his master exactly, the long, bare strength of him, the way the water would part around him and cling to his arms, his chest.

Obi-Wan breathed out slowly. 

Qui-Gon would approach him. Qui-Gon never saw the point of being far apart when they spoke; he liked to be close enough to Obi-Wan so they could speak quietly. Obi-Wan thought of him drawing close to Obi-Wan's side and reaching out to touch Obi-Wan's face, his warm fingertips alighting on Obi-Wan's skin just so. Obi-Wan felt his skin prickle with tension as he imagined Qui-Gon's fingers sweeping down his jaw. Qui-Gon's hands were so strong and large; they would curl perfectly around Obi-Wan's naked hips if they stood together. And perhaps Qui-Gon could sit on this very bench and Obi-Wan could straddle his lap, pushing them together intimately, and Obi-Wan could suck the sweet water from Qui-Gon's skin and kiss his soft mouth.

Obi-Wan shivered, sending ripples out into the pool. The want swelled inside him sweet and strong until he ached with it: with longing and unspoken words and the feeling of his own untouched skin. His fingers curled around the hard edge of the bench, and the scrape of the worn stone on his palms was unbearably good.

 _He's not here,_ Obi-Wan told himself desperately. _He never will be_.

And he wouldn't, he _wouldn't_ , Obi-Wan knew that without a doubt. There had been a night, last year, in a small, empty cabin on the outskirts of a village. Snow-capped mountains in the distance and blossom trees everywhere, so laden with flower that petals drifted through the air like snow, and in the darkness Obi-Wan had been overcome, had acted rashly and reached out to put a hand on Qui-Gon's arm as they lay next to each other on the floor. 

He'd felt the solid strength of Qui-Gon's arm beneath the sleeve, and he let his fingers follow the natural curve up to Qui-Gon's shoulder and over his chest, and he'd known Qui-Gon was awake because the air was full of tension, a held breath waiting to be released, and as Obi-Wan's fingertips touched the warmth of Qui-Gon's skin, there where Qui-Gon's tunics parted, Qui-Gon finally spoke –

Obi-Wan smoothed a hand over his trembling mouth and looked up. The quiet bathing room, with its staccato drips and silent ripples, surrounded him. By the wall stood the servants, gazing back at him with unfamiliar faces.

'I think I've bathed long enough,' he said. If his voice sounded a little strained, there was no one he knew there to hear it.


End file.
